Messages - amassherst

Hey, there, I'm a 1L at a top50 school and just a week ago, I was ready to drop out. Pretty much in the same boat that you described. I emailed one of my professors telling him that I was going to take a leave of absence. I got a little behind and it just all came to a head. My emotional state was not in the right place. I'm not going to go into details, but I can say that, to some degree, I was right there with you. I had a long talk with an older sibling that left me ready to take on the remaining six or so weeks of the semester.

Take it one day at a time. You still have quite a bit of time in the semester left to put in a great effort to get caught up and do reasonably well on your exams. Talk to some more of your classmates/1L friends about the way you've been feeling. My problem was that I kept my problems all to myself. After I was on the verge of dropping out, I came out the next day and mentioned it to a few friends and they were quite understanding and I saw that some of them were just about at that point, too. (Not quite where I was. None of them e-mailed their prof apologizing for missing the last couple of classes and stating that s/he's decided to leave school in the middle of the semester) It's re-assuring.

Hope that helps. Hang in there. Slog through it. It's slow going. Don't worry if you don't get it 100% yet, but just make sure you do your work. I still have to catch up because I got a little behind. Being behind stresses you out more. More stress leads to lesser quality and diminished sleep. That leads to less motivation and increased feelings of insurmountability. Then the cycle repeats itself. You have to break the cycle. Prepare yourself for second semester by learning from this experience. Last week, when I was dropping out, that was my rock bottom. I'm motivated by knowing my rock bottom is behind me. It's all uphill from here. You should feel the same.

I know you asked for success stories, but I don't have one personally. I'll share my story anyway. I'm a 1L, like your girlfriend. I'm a 1L just like your girlfriend, rather. Not a 1L who likes your girlfriend. I probably don't even know her. Anyway, my girlfriend came to visit me after about two weeks of my being away at law school. A couple of weeks later, I broke it all off. The stress, the new long distance, the workload, the new friends, the new cool city, all of that contributed to the decision. She started a new grad program, too, so she had all this newness, but not quite as much as I did. It was the right decision because we had only been together for about six months and, honestly, there are some very attractive women in my law school and city.

That being said, look at it as a blessing. When she's in law school (even if you're not doing the long distance thing, although I take it that you are since you wrote that she "left" to law school), you'll probably be fighting a lot. If you're not fighting a lot, you'll probably be missing each other a lot. And she'll feel guilty that you're missing her and you'll both want the relationship to be how it used to be, but it just can't be. Skype sucks because you can see the person but you can't touch them. That makes it even worse than gchat for me.

I know you have been together for years, which makes it hard. But, if you're a traditional-age student, you must be 20-22, so very young. You have a lot of living ahead. Pursue your dreams just like she pursued hers and the rest will fall into place.

Law school is a meat market. Any chick with halfway decent looks has a Russian breadline of dudes trying to get a piece. You don't want to be stressing all about that. Have fun during your senior year with a relaxed mind. Because, really, you want her to make new friends in law school but you don't want to be questioning whether she's boffing them all.

Yes, maybe if it's meant to be, you'll be back together. But if she's wanting to take a break after the first WEEK? Um, yeah...

I'm not a law school admission authority at all, just an incoming 1L, but I would say that, generally, the person who told you that is incorrect. I think schools want to see that you've put thought into your application to them. Of course, they want to see your numbers and no amount of specific interest in the school will compensate for wholly subpar stats but when you're composing your PS on why you want to go to law school in general and X Law School in particular, it's in your best interest to do more than just end your essay with: "....and that's why I want to attend [insert law school name here".

I took my diagnostic test back in the early part of February when I started the Kaplan course I am currently enrolled in. As the course has progressed, I have increased my studying time to pretty much any free time I now have. (on top of a full time job + 2hrs total commute). I plan on taking the test in June.

My initial Diagnostic for the course was a 144. We just took another practice test in the course, and I have only improved by 3 points to a 147.

From the breakdown:

In LR I significantly improved with Assumption type questions, and I seem to be "flawless" with the flaw questions, however MP, Method of Arg, Paradox, and Inference are my largest weak points. I was able to answer and complete roughly 17-18 of the 25 total LR questions per section, and seem to range about 3-5 wrong out of the 17-18 I tackle. (In practice on timed LR sections I am scoring with the same range of 17-18, and 3-5 wrong answers, occasionally only 1-2 wrong)

For LG I tripped myself up with the setup on one game, for all the questions I did tackle I got correct, but I missed an entire game due to time. I feel with a repeated run through of games I will not have too much of an issue in this section, I am finding in practice I do not have too much issue with the Logic Games.

As for RC I appear to be an incredibly slow reader, or I spend too much time second guessing/ensuring that I have the information correct, and then only end up with enough time to tackle 2 passages. I seem to not do that poorly on the questions, (answering incorrectly on only 1, or 2) however I miss a great deal of questions due to not even tackling the 2 entire passages.

In all honestly I feel I have only really begun a dedicated and disciplined study plan about 3 weeks ago, initially I was failing to dedicate enough time after a full day of work, now I go directly to the library after work until it closes. I now average about 20 hours of study time per week.

I welcome any and all advice on what to do to improve my scores. Also, with the June test roughly 2 months away, do I have enough time to improve adequately enough on the test to score above even a 160?

Thank you!

You're screwed. I took a diagnostic exam where I scored in the mid-140's and I aimed to self-study for 160+ but only ended up in the mid-150's.

Kidding. You seem to have an understanding of the breakdown of the question types that give you trouble. That's a big plus. Work on those. Work on the timing. Sorry, I don't have any helpful feedback. I was a low scorer. Good luck!

From your description, it seems like you're at American. Could you do an externship in the Food & Drug Administration? Would the contacts there help you land a position that is sort of in your area of interest? I know that government jobs are uber competitive, but is that a route that you may also want to consider so that you start working right away after your three years of law school rather than adding on an additional four of a hard science Ph.D?

Well at first I let myself get a little excited over the fact that they thought enough of me to send me a waiver (yes I realize this is a very small thing, but it made me smile). When it was schools that my numbers are compatible in, I found it believable that they would really want me to apply and eventually attend. But last week I got a letter from Northwestern praising my score, which I don't even think is in their 25th percentile. When a school like this offers me a fee waiver I'm very skeptical. I'm retaking the lsat in june or october though. I feel like I can do better. When its time to apply I guess I'll still apply to the free ones.

Definitely apply to Northwestern if you got a fee waiver. I didn't get one from them because I had a middling score. I paid the fees for my reach schools and although Northwestern was a top choice for me, I chose not to apply there because their app fee was $100. Others were $75. If you apply there, you'll only have to pay the $12 LSAC app fee. Do it. You're not losing much.